Ghost Racers: Mayhem In The Morning!

An average morning commute in Los Angeles, really.

My mornings have been pretty busy as of late.

The key thing with your morning, as a Public School Teacher is the total inability to be Late. If you are late…well…there are about thirty kids in your homeroom who are unattended, not eating breakfast, and who are unaccounted for in terms of education and/or safety. As a teacher your liability is non transferable, meaning if something happens to them because you are late, and a sub hasn’t arrived yet…it’s on you, in a legal sense.

All of that combines to make it imperative that you Be On Time. It is hugely important.

Los Angeles, though, is somewhat notorious for drastic traffic. This often makes that commute seem more stressful than it should. I generally leave the house at 6:45 AM, and my first class starts at 8 AM. It’s an eighteen mile drive, which means it should take about twenty minutes to half an hour. Sometimes it does…sometimes, I sign in ten minutes prior to the bell. By leaving that much time, I pretty much ensure that I will make it.

Still…this year has seen my transmission fail, the need to do banking in the morning, and two major traffic jams en route to work…all with only two weeks in the proverbial hopper. I suppose two and a half weeks, being fair. Nonetheless, it really does feel at times as if a giant Satan is hurling hellbolts at the 10 freeway on my commute.

Hopefully, today will be the last day that the Ghost Rider is helping with all of that, since I’ll be doing the banking to get my car back, transmission doing fine. That’s a big time “yay!” and Culver Automotive has really stepped up to the plate to fix what the Other Shop couldn’t. Those Other Shop Guys are still kind of dodging me, probably because they don’t want to have to make good on the warranty. It’s pretty easy to dodge me right now, since I’m teaching all day, and can’t really take the time for a good phone rant, or just “leave the office.”

Satan also made an appearance because I’m teaching “Lord of the Flies” right now. The influence of a Satan like figure is pretty pronounced in the text, and although we aren’t at that point in the book yet, it is certainly on my mind. Satan also fits the Edu-Mountain setting pretty well…I’m even willing to say our Alien American protagonist would have a hard time shrugging off a Satano-Blast from Satan himself. Hence, the Ghost Rider and the protagonist booking it at good speed from his Dark Wrath, in the form of Hell Beams.

The art on the cover of the Marvel Secret Wars “Ghost Racers” Battleworld book.

Yes, “Ghost Racers” happened. It was what it was…part of the big, and successful Marvel Secret Wars crossover of last year. Kind of a lackluster offering in that area, to be honest, but more honest than the Agents of SHIELD TV show is going to be. Those guys are introducing the Robbie Reyes Ghost Rider, who drives a car.

Let’s be clear. That’s a Ghost Driver.

Honestly, since that Ghost Rider is in East LA, he has the Worst Kind of transport. At least traditional Ghost Rider can do wheelies, weave through traffic on his flaming bike, and ramp pretty much anything that might be rampable. That’s what a motorcycle composed of hellfire gets you.

A guy with a skull head in a flaming Dodge Charger? He gets stuck in stop and go traffic on the 10 Freeway, just like everyone else.